1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a documentation machine, and more particularly, to a European language for example English processing machine equipped with a spelling correction function which is capable of selecting usually at least one correct word candidate through one character replacement or one character addition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, in documentation machines such as computer systems, word processors, typewriters or the like dealing with information by words in European languages, for example, in English, there is normally provided a dictionary in order to check whether or not inputted English words or the like are free from errors in spelling. Moreover, at present, there has been further added another function to provide candidates for correct words at the side of the system, besides the function for merely indicating incorrectly spelled words. To this end, a practice most frequently employed at the current stage is a combination of the following four processings.
(1) 1 character replacement:
Ex. stataon.fwdarw.station (Replacement of "a" by "i") PA1 Ex. statioon.fwdarw.station (Deletion of 1 character "o") PA1 Ex. staton.fwdarw.station (Addition of "i" between "t" and "o") PA1 Ex. statre.fwdarw.stater (Inversion of "re" to "er")
(2) 1 character deletion:
(3) 1 character addition:
(4) Neighboring character inversion:
In the aforementioned conventional European language processing machines, one character addition or one character replacement is done in a manner such that each cf alphabet letters "a" through "z" is added or used for replacement merely in order in providing a correct word candidate with respect to an inputted and incorrectly spelt word. Accordingly, it is necessary to repeatedly check whether or not a given word is correct or to repeatedly add the next alphabet or use it for replacement, until the correct word is given. This is disadvantageous in that the selection of the correct word requires a lot of time.